“You were the one who asked me to open the door.”
“Yeah.” Unspoken was the fact that he’d only gotten her to do what she wanted to do.
She wriggled her lips against her teeth. “I didn’t want to be alone.” She didn’t want to face the specter of Bud all by herself.
“Where’s your husband?”
“Visiting graveyards or something.” Her heart twisted with the flippant reply. She hadn’t even thought to call out for him. She’d only thought of crawling into Witt’s bed and having him hold her until the quaking in her bones stopped.
“So you couldn’t find him and came to me instead.”
She huffed a great gulp of air. Then gave him the truth. “I came to you first.”
“That’s nice.”
He was on his side of the door and she on hers. The next move belonged to her. On all fours again, she crossed his threshold and plopped next to his out-stretched legs, her hip bumping his calf.
“Make love to me,” she whispered.
He sat still for a long minute in which she couldn’t read any expression at all with his face completely in shadow, then he rolled to his feet and held out his hand. When she took it and let him pull her to her feet, he said, “Not to. With.”
“With,” she echoed.
He led her into the intimate confines of the bathroom and flipped on the light. She winced against the brightness and the disheveled state of her hair in the mirror. Standing behind her, he melded his body to hers. In the mirror, the top of her head reached his shoulders. Usually she wore a decent pair of heels, but with her barefoot, he rested his chin on her hair. She felt surrounded. And safe. A trickle of warmth spread from her heart to her belly, and his hands on her shoulders shot bolts of heat down her arms. But her hands were still cold.
She met his hot blue gaze in the mirror, then pulled his hands down to wrap them around her waist below her breasts. She concentrated on the sight, as if seeing them together, really seeing it would chase the chill away.
“We’re gonna make love here. In front of the mirror.” He was hard against the small of her back.
“That’s sort of kinky.” Nice. Sexy. But she wasn’t sure about having the cold counter against her belly.
“I want you to know who’s inside you.” He tipped her chin up with his thumb and forced her to meet his gaze. “It’s me. Only me.”
She’d never imagined that he was anyone but himself.
He peeled off his T-shirt and tossed it out the open door. Then he reached for the hem of her nightshirt. Cold air seeped between them, but he extinguished it almost immediately with hot, naked flesh to her back.
“My breasts are too small,” she whispered. Her shoulders appeared bony, and the overhead lights cast shadows between each of her ribs. “I’m too skinny.” She’d never looked this closely. Cameron was right.
“Slender. That’s what you are.” His hands crept up her abdomen to cup her breasts. “More than a mouthful’s a waste, and you have great nipples.”
Each grew stiff as he rolled them between his thumb and forefinger. Nerves connected to her clitoris made it jump.
His face disappeared as he bent to push off his sweats. He trailed rough fingers up the back of her legs and her butt as he rose again. His cock rested once more against the base of her spine. Hot and wet, he rubbed the tip against her skin. The blue flame leaping in his eyes set her on fire.
“Am I bigger than he was?”
“Yes.” In every way, he was larger than Cameron. Right now he was larger than death, and she couldn’t recall Cameron’s face or the lilt of his voice.
Skimming down her belly, he pulled her hard against him and dipped beneath the elastic of white cotton panties. With a knee, he spread her legs, then plunged into her hot, very moist center. Finding her clitoris with the greatest of ease, he rubbed light circles.
With his other hand, he held her chin aloft, nipped her neck, then watched her in the mirror. Beneath the sweet onslaught of his fingers, her lids drooped to half-mast but didn’t close, and air puffed from her lips.
“Does this feel better than him?”
He said it almost as if he knew that Cameron visited her in the night and filled her in her dreams, even now, long after his death. “You don’t need compare yourself to him.”
“I don’t. But you do. You need to decide which you prefer.”
A man. Or a ghost. Solid male. Or a crutch. With Cameron she had to close her eyes to feel him. With Witt, she could watch and feel, a beautiful, wonderful, terrifying sensation. “I want real.”
He slid his thumbs to sides of her panties and rolled them down her legs. This time as he rose, he swiped his tongue along her flesh, leaving a trail of shocks and shivers.
He bent and rocked himself in the crease of her butt. “Ready?”